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TO THE
MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS
OF THE
BOROUGH OF SOUTHGATE
Mr. Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen
I beg to present my Annual Report for 1960.
The year under review has been once again uneventful. I
hasten to add that this does not mean either that nothing has
happened or that nothing has been done. The amenities of Southgate,
those which were provided by nature and those, by far the
greater part, which were built up by the careful, loving care of past
Councils, must be jealously guarded. Every year the Borough
grows older, houses reach their anticipated life or even over-run
that period. Although the population of Southgate has not
increased over the past years, we find more and more houses being
occupied by multiple families ; while almost every inch of available
space has now been built upon. What is happening in Southgate
today, and what has been happening virtually since the end of the
war, requires constant vigilance. The fact that I can say in my
Annual Report that nothing sensational has happened during 1960
is in itself a most satisfactory statement ; provided, of course, as I
have already suggested, that the work of preserving Southgate at
the level which it has already reached is being carried out.
And that, I feel I can truthfully say, has been done and is still being
done to the best of our ability.
The vital statistics for 1960 are satisfactory, although it must
once again be emphasised that a year's statistics for an area with a
population of approximately 70,000 can only be regarded as
important for comparative purposes. The death rate was 11.0, as
compared with 10.9 for 1959. The birth rate rose from 13.0 in
1959 to 14.7 in 1960. The infant mortality rate, i.e. the number
of infants who died during the first year of life per thousand live
births, was 14.80 as against 15.30 in 1959, a very slight drop. There
were no deaths from puerperal sepsis, indeed no deaths took place
during childbirth.
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